well some people claim Ulfric was fleeing Skyrim which is as groundless and unproven as calling him racist.

And you do see my point even if you don't agree with it. Even you question why would imperial soldiers march on Shor's Watchtower and wipe out the Rift guards? If not part of the trap to kill Ulfric, then why? Just like Balgruuf's sniveling steward who is paranoid sending troops to Riverwood would be perceived as an act of war on Falkreath, wouldn't an imperial attack on Riften guards seem like an act of war? The note can be found before the Civil War has been started, so saying the imperials were trying to take the hold is groundless. After all their camp is by the very path leading to Helgen. Very likely placed there to delay any Riften or Stormcloak soldiers from getting to Ulfric before Tullius got safely behind Helgen's walls.

Again, we don't know why Ulfric was in near Darkwater Crossing. We don't even know exactly what side of Darkwater Crossing he was on. He could have been towards the Mill, or up in the hills high above Darkwater Crossing. OR he could have been on the Eastmarch side in the hotsprings. Or he could have been between Darkwater Crossing and Shor's Stone/ Watchtower area. Because of the attack on the tower I'm more inclined to think he was in that area.

But, all this is speculation due to the simple fact an intro was slapped together without the writers perhaps really thinking it all through.

The Stormcloak rebellion was already going on prior to Ulfric's capture (heck, there's evidence it's been around for years, although to what degree prior to Torygg's death a few months prior to the start of the game is unclear), with Riften supporting Ulfric, whereas at that point Whiterun Hold's forces were neutral. As to why, the closest Legion presence to Shor's Watchtower would be the Eastmarch Legion camp, and I wouldn't be surprised if they attacked the watch tower to blind the Stormcloaks in the area, or simply saw an opportunity to bring down a vulnerable target.

yeah but there was no open attacks yet. imperials and stormcloaks may have been setting up camps in the enemy holds but they were not attacking city or town guards. Name me ONE incident in the civil war where your fighting city guards excluding taking Solitude or Windhelm. Imperials and stormcloaks only fought each other. So for imperials to leave Eastmarch which is full of stormcloaks, to kill Riften guards at Shor's Watchtower is less likely then imperials killing the guards so as to capture Ulfric. and another thing is the time line.

When did Ulfric kill the high king? Was he on his way back to Windhelm from Solitude when he was captured? What does that mean for Roggvir? Was he imprisoned for a few months after the high king's death and then killed? Or was he killed the day Tullius makes it back from Helgen, having failed to kill Ulfric so he has Roggvir beheaded?

And like I said before. We don't know why Ulfric was outside Eastmarch. But if he was returning from Riften to Windhelm then Shor's Watchtower was right on his route. For all we know the imperials launched their trap from there and chased the stormcloaks towards Darkwater Crossing. Which to me makes sense considering Fort Amol is right next to Darkwater Crossing. Granted necromancers killed all the stormcloaks there but who's to say that didn't happen after Ulfric's capture?

Its also possible that the imperials killed the Shor Watchtower guards and went after Ulfric who decided to take the road from Riften through Shor's Stone, down to Darkwater Crossing and then along the road past Mixwater Mill because he knew there was an imperial camp in Eastmarch near the road if he just kept on going that direct route.

Make sense?

Pretty sure you kill Whiterun guards and Imperial soldiers if you chose to take Whiterun for Ulfric. If you defend Whiterun, there are still Whiterun guards standing there defending it with you and your fellow Imperial soldiers.

I think it's just circumstantial. All that happened months ago, and Tullius has bigger things on his plate than the punishment of a disgraced gate guard.



I have a feeling we're forgetting something: our own capture. Ralof said we were captured with the rest of the Stormcloaks near Darkwater Crossing while trying to cross the border. You said it yourself, Shor's Watchtower is located on the closest road out of Skyrim, so it's possible WE were using this road to get into Skyrim. I'll have to replay the intro, but didn't Ralof say where they were trying to get to before the Imperials ambushed them?

Though now I'm confused. I'm looking at the UESP map of Skyrim, straight down at Shor's Watchtower, but I'm not sure if I can find any road leading out of Skyrim around that area; it's all mountains. Now I DID find an obvious road out of Skyrim. It's near Halldir's Cairn, just a little ways away from Falkreath. We also entered Helgen from the north so that would mean Tullius, assuming they were all caught near Darkwater Crossing, would have to go all around the northern face of the Throat of the World, through Whiterun territory, through Riverwood to get into Helgen.

OK, let me break it down a bit:

= Halldir's Cairn is near the road out of Skyrim to the west. It's an obvious route, though it's firmly in Imperial territory.

= The capture happened around Darkwater Crossing. It's possible Ulfric was near Shor's Watchtower, though I don't understand why he'd try to escape there as it's nothing but mountains; there's no obvious road out of Skyrim. He'd have to spend the whole trek climbing.

= Tullius' journey would get him OUT of Stormcloak territory and into Imperial territory, which would make sense for him.

= We came in somewhere from Skyrim. We don't know how long we've been in Skyrim, and Ralof seems to think we've just recently entered Skyrim.

...I'm not getting this at all, am I?

I'm not a huge fan of Ulfric and his rebellion. Starting wars and rebellions will only open up old wounds between the Nords and Imperials and create more bad blood between the human races. The Empire may have done many questionable things in their recent history (IMO I don't think signing the WGC was one of them..it's better to have something rather than nothing) but they were for the greater good. You wouldn't support the enemy football team just because they're winning. It's like that with the Empire, you support the empire through the hard times and good times.

I don't buy that argument. If there was no bad blood to start with, Ulfric's 'civil war' would've been a flash-in-the-pan uprising of half a dozen people.

Why should you? People forget the Empire is precisely what it says on the tin: an empire. An instrument of external conquest. Why do Nords owe it their loyalty?

ok sure you fight the city guards in Whiterun but your attacking the city. Not the poor guard walking the road near Rorikstead. Or the ones in Riverwood.

If you follow on the map, the road from Windhelm that passes by Kynsegrove, Shor's Stone, it leads to Riften/ But at Riften if you head from that road to the one that goes past the entrance to the Fort Dawnguard area, that road dead ends at a border out of Skyrim. Its an unmarked location but its there.

That is the only closest border near Darkwater Crossing and would lead you past the Shor's Watchtower. So... did Tullius have his men watching that whole road looking for Ulfric? arresting you for maybe trying to cross the border out of Skyrim and concluded you were with the stormcloaks? Or were you crossing into Skyrim and decided to run the imperial checkpoint lol

The was bad blood after the signing of the concordat. Banning Talos wouldn't have gone down well for the Nords of Skyrim. However it wasn't until 4E 201 that the civil actually war broke out, so clearly Ulfric was stirring things up and trying to divide 'sons of Skyrim' from pro empire supporters.

A majority of the empire are actually made up from Nords, they helped found it. There's a lot of history there, Imperials and Nords have fought and died besides each other for hundreds of years. I think it's a shame that a small majority want to walk away from that. Conquest but also peace keeping, when Black marsh and the rest of the provinces left the empire they fell into chaos, it was only Skyrim, Cyrodiil and High rock that remained peaceful.

Personally I think Ulfric is playing on peoples emotions in the dark times and igniting peoples anger as a way for him to gain power and eventually High king status.

I think the confusion here is the assumption that the Player-Character is captured somewhere near where Ulfric and his guys were caught. If you take that issue (the PC being caught crossing the border) out of the equation, then Ulfric and company could have been doing something unrelated to borders. Darkwater Crossing lies between Windhelm and Ivarstead/Throat of the World. Ulfric had ties to the Greybeards and may have simply been visiting the shrines on the mountain.

The Player-Character could have been picked up by a separate Imperial patrol, and simply added to the prisoner cart at any time prior to reaching Helgen.

ok... if we were not captured near Ulfric Stormcloak then why bother arrest us at all? And there was no separate imperial patrol. If there was we'd have ridden that wagon into town and not be tossed into the wagon with Ulfric. Being in his wagon to me suggests we were all caught in the same area.

Which happens to be nowhere near a border.

the only border is eastmarch and the Rift... an invisible line.

The other borders are not illegal to cross either. Which still leaves the baffling question. If we were NOT arrested near Ulfric Stormcloak then why were we arrested at all? Border crossing is not illegal. And if we were caught near one of the borders out of Skyrim, why be executed for it? Its not a crime punishable by death considering killing someone only nets you a time out. And since there is no border out of Skyrim near Darkwater crossing, why bother taking us to Helgen? Why not just kill us at what ever border we crossed "illegally"

Did you ever think that maybe they left the reasoning behind our characters arrest unknown so we could fill that in if we wanted to? I don't know about you but my character was arrested for throwing the https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJjJeohh7Vk. The Empire didn't appreciate the smack down one of their haten' soldiers got when he suggested we bring women to the party.....women!!? Damn milk drinker.

Well, this is one reason why I use an alternate start mod. In my opinion the whole starting thing was poorly planned, badly constructed, and hard to make any sense out of. There was no justification for executing the PC anyway, and it only occurs to make Alduin's appearance even more dramatic and (in my opinion) over-the-top. Somebody probably thought it would be cool to introduce us to the Main Quest and the leaders of the CW factions with a life-and-death scene.

It is kind of weird isn't it? The greatest dragon ever known attacks an out of the way hamlet in the middle of nowhere that you just happen to be at, really? Is he warming up? Why not just take out Solitude or Whiterun? He is strong enough to do so plus he is invincible.

I felt the same. Even more so after you find out that's pretty much one of the very few times you run into Alduin, and imo it was the only time he ever felt dramatic or important in anyway... well, until I ran into other dragons and realised Alduin was the same size... he was a piss poor antagonist tbh. He should have attacked more towns/hounded your character to some degree, anything! *Sigh*... Oblivion felt more apocalyptic than Skyrim.

The Dunmer were there before Ulfric was born, he didn't open or let the Dunmer into Windhelm, Scouts-Many-Marshes tells us it was Ulfric's Decree that the Argonians were banned from living inside the walls of windhelm and it's even implied that Ulfric's followers would cause more problems for the argonians then anyone else inside the city, the Altmer point is weak, I can name numerous cities that are ruled by racists towards a race that lives there for instance Leyawiin.

Another point to make is that you don't have to hate all the races to be a racist, you can hate individual races.

soyea.

I also use AS LAL mod because of how... bluntly put, crap ass poor writing the intro was.

Ok... I get it, blank state, you invent who you are but that kinda gets tossed out the window when its mentioned you were caught crossing a border. That line of dialog should never have been there.

Ulfric is a poor leader, not because I just think so but because.

1. Look at the state Windhelm is in, not just the structures but the morale of the people, I highly doubt all those problems happened in 1 year
2. We have enough to imply that Ulfric will neglect certain races due to him ignoring the Dunmer and Argonians which is again, something that I highly doubt is only a year old.
3. He went into a civil war with no allies, no one to back him up if he gets into serious problems.
4. He doesn't realize that a cause that basically tells Talos worshipers to come out of hiding is a bad idea, hello easy bait for the Thalmor.

I honestly do believe he could be power hungry and racist because we have enough things to suggest such a implication, it's him holding up the Moot because he doesn't want to lose the high throne.


Sorry but from how I see it we have nothing to suggest Ulfric is even close to a decent leader yet we have enough to imply he is a poor one.

I respect your opinion and I agree with it to a large extent. It is nice to see some diversity in the postings and not just "Empire vs Storm-Cloaks" so I commend you for that.

perhaps you are blaming the state of the city on him when in reality he has not been Jarl of Windhelm very long. He took over after his father died (while he was imprisoned by the thalmor) at least that is what I read somewhere. I could be wrong. But the man is a product of the culture and society he grew up in. Its hardly his fault.

People really need to stop using this, or at least be consistent about it. Whiterun is in a worse state, on the state of the city, than Windhelm is, with similar amounts of damage found(i looked specifically at that, and encourage people to do the same), in addition to crumbling walls(both seen and commented on by Balgruuf, in the Legion side of the Battle of Whiterun, and by Galmar in the Stormcloak side).

Windhelm looks more depressing, to be sure, but that seems to be more a result of the color scheme of dark brown, dark gray/black and white. Not because the city is in such a horrible state. Unless you want to say Whiterun is in a terrible state. Just be consistent about it, please.

30 years is a pretty long time.

I thought according to the end of the great war, the Markarth incident and Ulfric's capture afterwards its speculated to be somewhere around 20 years.

Madanach was imprisoned by the Silver-Bloods at the end of the Markarth Incident. He was imprisoned for 20 years. Ulfric had just returned to Skyrim from the great war prior to this. He was then held captive by Elenwen for a time.

So 30 years is stretching it. And it would make him much older then he is also estimated to be.

20 years is still a pretty long time as a ruler.